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The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom
This classic work of political theory and practice offers an account of the modern Machiavellians, a remarkable group who have been influential in Europe and practically unknown in the United States. The book devotes a long section to Machiavelli himself as well as to such modern Machiavellians as Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. Burnham contends that the writings of these men hold the key both to the truth about politics and to the preservation of political liberty.
305 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1943
About the author
James Burnham
63 books145 followersJames Burnham was an American popular political theorist, best known for his influential work The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941. Burnham was a radical activist in the 1930s and an important factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement. In later years, as his thinking developed, he left Marxism and produced his seminal work The Managerial Revolution. He later turned to conservatism and served as a public intellectual of the conservative movement. He also wrote regularly for the conservative publication National Review on a variety of topics.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
March 16, 2017
One of the greatest books on political theory one can have the pleasure of reading, elucidating the Machiavellian realist or amoral analysis of politics. Both an analysis of it's chief figures, their theories and a contrast of the "politics as wish" as represented by Dante. This should be in the curriculum of all political theory/philosophy/science classes, it's brevity and clarity are to be envied.
February 6, 2020
The Machiavellians is one of those rare books in which the ideas expressed are absolutely compelling and the prose is eloquent, too, so that it feels great to read it.
Burnham starts by talking about a manifesto of the Democratic Party and Dante's (yes, the same Dante who produced The Inferno) political writing. Both profess to be for lofty ideas but that's just the "formal" meaning of their political will. There's always a real meaning behind these claims and what distinguishes the Machiavellians is that they want to find the real motives of political actors and analyze the realm of politics just as one would any other science: by looking at facts.
Machiavelli is the bogeyman of many but his only flaw is that he was the first political scientist: he made statements about how "political man" works by observation and not by appealing to moral justice or anything of the kind that rulers –and the intellectuals supporting them– use to justify their privileged status in society.
In subsequent chapters we learn about great Machiavellian thinkers, like Gaetano Mosca who came up with the concept of the political formula – the myth that justifies the rule of the current ruling class (the subsequent chapters are about Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto).
The book then goes into further details about what makes a society (which is, remember, at any moment sharply divided between rulers are ruled) stable and what provides the ruled with the highest possible degree of freedom.
As I said, the book is the kind where one would highlight every second sentence and guard it as a gem that illuminates people's minds about the nature of power so it's hard to pick one quote to conclude my review but here goes:
“No societies are governed by the people, by a majority; all societies, including societies called democratic, are ruled by a minority. But the ruling minority always seeks to justify and legitimize its rule in part through a formula, without which the social structure would disintegrate.”
To see all of my reviews from the book, see https://www.goodreads.com/notes/43794....
Burnham starts by talking about a manifesto of the Democratic Party and Dante's (yes, the same Dante who produced The Inferno) political writing. Both profess to be for lofty ideas but that's just the "formal" meaning of their political will. There's always a real meaning behind these claims and what distinguishes the Machiavellians is that they want to find the real motives of political actors and analyze the realm of politics just as one would any other science: by looking at facts.
Machiavelli is the bogeyman of many but his only flaw is that he was the first political scientist: he made statements about how "political man" works by observation and not by appealing to moral justice or anything of the kind that rulers –and the intellectuals supporting them– use to justify their privileged status in society.
In subsequent chapters we learn about great Machiavellian thinkers, like Gaetano Mosca who came up with the concept of the political formula – the myth that justifies the rule of the current ruling class (the subsequent chapters are about Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto).
The book then goes into further details about what makes a society (which is, remember, at any moment sharply divided between rulers are ruled) stable and what provides the ruled with the highest possible degree of freedom.
As I said, the book is the kind where one would highlight every second sentence and guard it as a gem that illuminates people's minds about the nature of power so it's hard to pick one quote to conclude my review but here goes:
“No societies are governed by the people, by a majority; all societies, including societies called democratic, are ruled by a minority. But the ruling minority always seeks to justify and legitimize its rule in part through a formula, without which the social structure would disintegrate.”
To see all of my reviews from the book, see https://www.goodreads.com/notes/43794....
August 14, 2021
The American Right, like all outsider political movements, has long been susceptible to Gnosticism. This usually manifests as the belief that a small group of wise initiates can see through rationales for political action and find hidden knowledge, of the real reasons men and societies act as they do. Sometimes those reasons are the machinations of the Illuminati, or the Freemasons, or the Lizard Men. More often, they are prosaic, and although economic Gnosticism is the most frequent type, another common gnostic belief is that power is the only real driver of the actions of men, and all other rationales in politics mere epiphenomena, lies designed to conceal the hidden centrality of power. The Machiavellians is James Burnham’s exposition of this latter Gnosticism.
In order to understand this book, one must first understand Burnham. He was a repentant Communist, of the Trotskyite variety, prominent on the Right in the middle of the twentieth century, and the fierce urge to leave his past behind made him hyper-aware of the dangers of ideology. I, in fact, always use his definition of what an ideology is, “a more or less systematic and self-contained set of ideas supposedly dealing with the nature of reality . . . and calling for a commitment independent of specific experience or events.” But in truth, Burnham elevated his Gnosticism to something approximating a new ideology. Perhaps such stridency, such a desire to find the key to certainty, was in his nature, driving the beliefs of both his youth and his maturity. Yet the aim of his new ideology is technical, not utopian—it is to prove that politics can be a true science, that he understands that science, and that this allows him to recommend the optimal system for mankind.
This book, written in 1942 (and slightly revised in 1963) has experienced a renaissance on the Right in recent years, driven in part by Curtis Yarvin, who refers to it often, and has nothing but the highest praise for the book. This is no surprise; as I have analyzed at some length, Yarvin is both Gnostic and a proponent of instrumentalism, the idea that no transcendent moral principle has any relevance in governance, such that men can and should be used as tools to accomplish rational goals. And like Burnham, he claims that only stupid people believe other than him. (Both Yarvin and Burnham rely heavily on insulting opponents who are intellectual equals, never a good sign. Occasional insults are amusing; constant insults imply either insecurity or a rage problem.) Until very recently, however, The Machiavellians was hard to obtain; it’s still under copyright, but a small press has reissued the 1963 edition of the book (and Burnham’s other work), so now one can buy a hard copy cheaply and easily.
To talk about politics as science, Burnham begins with—Dante Alighieri. Not with the Divine Comedy; Burnham has no use whatsoever for religion. Rather with Dante’s little-known De Monarchia, translated as On Monarchy. Burnham compares Dante’s book to—the 1932 platform of the Democratic Party. His basic claim is that both documents are lies, which mean nothing on their own terms, and in fact are often diametrically opposed to reality. They are instead covers for their authors’ real motivations and intents, and he cleverly chooses these two disparate documents to illustrate his point.
De Monarchia is an entry in the then-current debates, of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, about the relative power of the Pope and secular monarchs, in particular the Holy Roman Emperor. The very short version of the book is that Dante supports the independent authority of the Emperor, using a variety of philosophical arguments. Burnham calls this the “formal meaning.” But the “real meaning,” which Burnham reveals to us after a long history lesson about Guelphs and Ghibellines, is a “propagandistic defense” of a specific group of exiles from Florence, including Dante himself, who sought to enlist the Emperor to bring about their return, both to Florence and to power. Burnham explicitly finds De Monarchia worthless, “vengeful and reactionary” scribblings pushing the program of “an embittered and incompetent set of traitors,” “nothing more than emotion, prejudice, and confusion,” designed only to lead the reader astray through encouraging a belief the author is “idealistic” and a man with “good will.”
From this (and a similar analysis of the Democratic Party’s platform, which likewise bore no relationship whatsoever to the real intents of the Party, and in fact reads like a far-Right document today), Burnham constructs his basic assertion. This is that nearly all political writing has as its formal aims “irresponsible” metaphysical aims, which are either imaginary or impossible. It is “politics as wish,” and as a result, political argument is almost all wasted time. “We think we are debating universal peace, salvation, a unified world government, and the relations between Church and State, when what is really at issue is whether the Florentine Republic is to be run by its own citizens or submitted to the exploitation of a reactionary foreign monarch.” Burnham’s project is for us to instead debate the “real aims” of any political program or claim, using scientific analysis to identify those claims.
The aim of this scientific approach is not merely to reinforce Burnham’s core Gnostic claim of the centrality of the search for power, however. Burnham does have a specific political goal, which is attaining “freedom” or “liberty,” by which Burnham means the rule of law, not freedom and liberty as colloquially understood today. To show why recognizing that power is all tends to lead to this beneficial result, Burnham exalts Niccolò Machiavelli, whose thought he analyzes both of itself and through the lens of four fairly obscure modern writers: Gaetano Mosca; Georges Sorel; Robert Michels; and Vilfredo Pareto. Of course, a great many writers have claimed to have the key to understanding Machiavelli and his thought, and it’s not at all clear to me that Burnham properly interprets Machiavelli (in particular, he seems to reject any esoteric, layered, or ironic reading of Machiavelli). But no matter; Burnham’s theory does not depend on whether his reading of Machiavelli is accurate.
In Burnham’s analysis, unlike Dante and all pre-modern thinkers, Machiavelli was unique in that he did not separate formal goals and real goals. He was clear that his only goal was the national unification of Italy, then (in the sixteenth century) extremely fragmented, and all his arguments cohered to aim at this goal. Authoritarian rule, that of a prince, was a tool to achieve this goal, so he recommended, encouraged, and aided it, writing The Prince to this end. Machiavelli had no other principles of ethics other than using the tools available to reach his goal, and that is as it should be, for science only follows facts and evidence, and from those draws conclusions. Moral principles have no relevance whatsoever.
True, the scientific method was not yet fully developed in Machiavelli’s time. But his key recognition was to reject chimeras such as the search for a good society or social welfare, what Burnham calls “nonsense,” and to understand “politics as primarily the struggles for power among men.” At the same time, Machiavelli sees liberty, in the Burnham sense, as desirable. According to Burnham, when Machiavelli uses the word liberty, he similarly means “no external subjection to another group; and, internally, a government by law, not by the arbitrary will of any individual men, princes or commoners.” The Discourses on Livy, rather than The Prince, are concerned with achieving this end, but again, Machiavelli’s formal goals and real goals are identical—he does not waste our time by reasoning from moral principles or abstractions of any kind. From this, however, we can see some internal tension in Burnham’s claims. Machiavelli sought how a state might achieve prosperity and the rule of law; most would, if those were shared by every citizen, define those as the key elements of both the good society and social welfare. As we will see, however, Burnham ultimately concludes that the search for power itself can lead to these results; they are secondary, if beneficial, effects of men’s real actions properly channeled, rather than prime goals.
Machiavelli does not claim that because men seek power over all other goals, that every man is completely identical in his political motivations and actions. Most crucially, men as a whole divide roughly into the rulers and the ruled, each the result of different impulses and psychology, as well as luck. (At several points in The Machiavellians, Burnham suggests that psychology will progress until it is able to offer the precision and accuracy of the hard sciences, such as chemistry or physics. This was a common belief of his time, although now it is obvious that psychology, like most or all the so-called social sciences, is a mere pseudo-science and probably takes more away from our society than it adds.) The key difference between the types of men, as it relates to politics, is not moral; it is the presence of virtù, along with a good dose of fraud, that tends to distinguish the ruler type. The interplay of the types of mankind leads to politics, buffeted by history and by Fortune. No perfect state is possible; the only question is what is the best state for a time and place, given these underlying truths. Burnham, for example, claims that he can know with total certainty that Machiavelli’s ideal state in the abstract was a republic, but he nonetheless wanted a monarchy in order to unify Italy.
After this discussion, which is really introduction, Burnham turns to his four thinkers, the Machiavellians. First up is Mosca, an Italian who lived from 1858 to 1941. His most famous work, and the one on which Burnham focuses, is The Ruling Class, published in 1896 and revised in 1923. Mosca rejected unitary theories of history, popular at the time, such as racial or climatic. Rather, history is the confluence of many factors, most of them random and interdependent. In other words, Mosca’s approach is scientific, and seeks only the truth. Mosca’s great truth, not original but updated for the modern age, is that every society, always and everywhere, has two general groupings, the rulers and the ruled. The specifics vary greatly, to be sure, but the groupings remain, and none of the form of government, the dominant culture, or any other factor often seen as crucial to social structures, change this essential truth.
This implies that true rule by an individual is impossible—even a theoretical total autocrat must depend on many others to implement his wishes, and those helpers are the ruling class (usually itself divided into upper and lower strata). It also implies that rule by the majority is equally impossible—power always defaults to a minority, who are better organized and otherwise more competent. The larger the political community, in fact, the smaller a proportion of the whole is the ruling class. (This analysis has a good deal in common with what is now called public choice theory.) Finally, it is only the ruling class that matters for the destiny of a nation. “A nation’s strength or weakness, its culture, its power of endurance, its prosperity, its decadence, depend in the first instance upon the nature of its ruling class.” Even if the mass, by violent action, overthrows the ruling class, its only effect is to create a new ruling class, never to have any other relevance in and of itself.
How does the ruling class come to exist? Not through Darwinian struggle for existence, but through a struggle for social pre-eminence. In this struggle, hard work and ambition are the key drivers, followed by intuition and confidence in oneself, as well as characteristics specific to preeminence in a particular society (e.g., warrior status in some times, commercial talent in others, what Mosca calls “social forces”). Moral principles are not relevant. A ruling class can maintain its position as long as it controls the relevant social forces; when those change, the ruling class tends to be replaced, sometimes wholesale, but more often by admission of new types of people. Ruling classes, of course, see themselves as ruling through some “political formula,” such as divine right or racial superiority, or simple tradition, but that is a fiction, although one necessary to maintain the ruling class.
Within this framework, just as Machiavelli did, Mosca does have an opinion about what the best achievable form of government is. Given the struggle for preeminence, that government system is best which achieves “juridical defense,” the rule of law, rather than arbitrary rule, which is tyranny, and which includes certain core freedoms, such as association, assembly, religion, and speech. Although autocracy is fully compatible with the rule of law, Mosca also believes that sclerosis and corruption tend to follow an excessively autocratic regime; thus, a society can flourish and progress when the ruling class diffuses power among it, and the rule of law is paramount, for which desirable result checks and balances are the primary tool.
Next, Burnham very briefly covers Sorel. He is a Machiavellian because he is anti-formalist and he views all politics as the struggle for social power, and he matters mostly because he influenced Michels and Pareto. Sorel specifically saw the struggle for socialism as doomed, because if it succeeded, it would only result in a new ruling class, not the freedom of the masses. The only solution was no organized politics at all, the worker self-organization of syndicalism, achieved through the spontaneous and catastrophic general strike. Sorel thought this not only unlikely, but impossible. However, the myth is what matters; it moves the revolutionists, in a fashion that prevents hijacking by those already in charge. Part of what is needed is violence; it is true that violence has declined in the modern world, but this is in large part because the ruling class abhors violence as a threat to itself, and instead rules by fraud, thereby more effectively maintaining their own rule. Accepting violence as the price of remaking society for the benefit of workers will, in point of fact, likely reduce violence by ending wars—but Sorel is no utopian, and in fact a realist/pessimist. Whether this is a legitimate interpretation of Sorel, I do not know—but this section could easily be omitted from the book, and nobody would notice.
Third is Michels, author of the 1911 book Political Parties, a book whose name does not really indicate what it is about. But its subtitle does: “A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy.” Michels coined the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which states that, accurately, and explains why, no matter how a group is formed, or under what principles it operates, it will be ruled by a minority of its members. For Michels, all human societies result in the forming of organizations, that is to say, groups of less than the whole, based on common interests. Universally, within any group, democracy gives way to oligarchy. The mass, that is, the crowd, always yields to leadership (shades of Gustave Le Bon), because most members of the mass are either incapable or can’t be bothered to prioritize leading; because often decisions must be made quickly, and mass consent is impossible to obtain in a timely fashion (or at all); and leadership itself requires rarely-found devotion to the group’s aims, as well as talent for the very complex nature of running any organization. Thus, any organization will quickly find itself in possession of a dominant sub-group, the leaders. One can, and hyper-egalitarians do, eliminate titles; you cannot eliminate the fact of leaders. No matter the supposed adherence to democracy, sovereignty in fact resides in those leaders, and the mass is happy with this result. These leaders tend, over time, to entrench and enrich themselves (Michels primarily studied trade unions, and Burnham speaks of American unions of the 1930s and 1940s, but it is all the same), thereby forming an oligarchy.
The ultimate result, in the political realm, is a tendency toward Bonapartism, exemplified by Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon III, in which the will of the mass is, in the view of the leader, concentrated in himself, such that his decisions are unimpeachable. He is “the executive organ of the popular will.” Burnham, channeling Michels, says this, democratic despotism, is the “logical culmination of democracy.” This possibility is also something Carl Schmitt, writing a decade later, pointed out in his The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. Still, it is not something we have seen in the past eighty years, but certainly in the 1940s it appeared to be the coming thing, and as we will see, Burnham put a new spin on the concept.
Last, we cover Pareto. Nobody reads Pareto today . . . [Review continues as first comment.]
In order to understand this book, one must first understand Burnham. He was a repentant Communist, of the Trotskyite variety, prominent on the Right in the middle of the twentieth century, and the fierce urge to leave his past behind made him hyper-aware of the dangers of ideology. I, in fact, always use his definition of what an ideology is, “a more or less systematic and self-contained set of ideas supposedly dealing with the nature of reality . . . and calling for a commitment independent of specific experience or events.” But in truth, Burnham elevated his Gnosticism to something approximating a new ideology. Perhaps such stridency, such a desire to find the key to certainty, was in his nature, driving the beliefs of both his youth and his maturity. Yet the aim of his new ideology is technical, not utopian—it is to prove that politics can be a true science, that he understands that science, and that this allows him to recommend the optimal system for mankind.
This book, written in 1942 (and slightly revised in 1963) has experienced a renaissance on the Right in recent years, driven in part by Curtis Yarvin, who refers to it often, and has nothing but the highest praise for the book. This is no surprise; as I have analyzed at some length, Yarvin is both Gnostic and a proponent of instrumentalism, the idea that no transcendent moral principle has any relevance in governance, such that men can and should be used as tools to accomplish rational goals. And like Burnham, he claims that only stupid people believe other than him. (Both Yarvin and Burnham rely heavily on insulting opponents who are intellectual equals, never a good sign. Occasional insults are amusing; constant insults imply either insecurity or a rage problem.) Until very recently, however, The Machiavellians was hard to obtain; it’s still under copyright, but a small press has reissued the 1963 edition of the book (and Burnham’s other work), so now one can buy a hard copy cheaply and easily.
To talk about politics as science, Burnham begins with—Dante Alighieri. Not with the Divine Comedy; Burnham has no use whatsoever for religion. Rather with Dante’s little-known De Monarchia, translated as On Monarchy. Burnham compares Dante’s book to—the 1932 platform of the Democratic Party. His basic claim is that both documents are lies, which mean nothing on their own terms, and in fact are often diametrically opposed to reality. They are instead covers for their authors’ real motivations and intents, and he cleverly chooses these two disparate documents to illustrate his point.
De Monarchia is an entry in the then-current debates, of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, about the relative power of the Pope and secular monarchs, in particular the Holy Roman Emperor. The very short version of the book is that Dante supports the independent authority of the Emperor, using a variety of philosophical arguments. Burnham calls this the “formal meaning.” But the “real meaning,” which Burnham reveals to us after a long history lesson about Guelphs and Ghibellines, is a “propagandistic defense” of a specific group of exiles from Florence, including Dante himself, who sought to enlist the Emperor to bring about their return, both to Florence and to power. Burnham explicitly finds De Monarchia worthless, “vengeful and reactionary” scribblings pushing the program of “an embittered and incompetent set of traitors,” “nothing more than emotion, prejudice, and confusion,” designed only to lead the reader astray through encouraging a belief the author is “idealistic” and a man with “good will.”
From this (and a similar analysis of the Democratic Party’s platform, which likewise bore no relationship whatsoever to the real intents of the Party, and in fact reads like a far-Right document today), Burnham constructs his basic assertion. This is that nearly all political writing has as its formal aims “irresponsible” metaphysical aims, which are either imaginary or impossible. It is “politics as wish,” and as a result, political argument is almost all wasted time. “We think we are debating universal peace, salvation, a unified world government, and the relations between Church and State, when what is really at issue is whether the Florentine Republic is to be run by its own citizens or submitted to the exploitation of a reactionary foreign monarch.” Burnham’s project is for us to instead debate the “real aims” of any political program or claim, using scientific analysis to identify those claims.
The aim of this scientific approach is not merely to reinforce Burnham’s core Gnostic claim of the centrality of the search for power, however. Burnham does have a specific political goal, which is attaining “freedom” or “liberty,” by which Burnham means the rule of law, not freedom and liberty as colloquially understood today. To show why recognizing that power is all tends to lead to this beneficial result, Burnham exalts Niccolò Machiavelli, whose thought he analyzes both of itself and through the lens of four fairly obscure modern writers: Gaetano Mosca; Georges Sorel; Robert Michels; and Vilfredo Pareto. Of course, a great many writers have claimed to have the key to understanding Machiavelli and his thought, and it’s not at all clear to me that Burnham properly interprets Machiavelli (in particular, he seems to reject any esoteric, layered, or ironic reading of Machiavelli). But no matter; Burnham’s theory does not depend on whether his reading of Machiavelli is accurate.
In Burnham’s analysis, unlike Dante and all pre-modern thinkers, Machiavelli was unique in that he did not separate formal goals and real goals. He was clear that his only goal was the national unification of Italy, then (in the sixteenth century) extremely fragmented, and all his arguments cohered to aim at this goal. Authoritarian rule, that of a prince, was a tool to achieve this goal, so he recommended, encouraged, and aided it, writing The Prince to this end. Machiavelli had no other principles of ethics other than using the tools available to reach his goal, and that is as it should be, for science only follows facts and evidence, and from those draws conclusions. Moral principles have no relevance whatsoever.
True, the scientific method was not yet fully developed in Machiavelli’s time. But his key recognition was to reject chimeras such as the search for a good society or social welfare, what Burnham calls “nonsense,” and to understand “politics as primarily the struggles for power among men.” At the same time, Machiavelli sees liberty, in the Burnham sense, as desirable. According to Burnham, when Machiavelli uses the word liberty, he similarly means “no external subjection to another group; and, internally, a government by law, not by the arbitrary will of any individual men, princes or commoners.” The Discourses on Livy, rather than The Prince, are concerned with achieving this end, but again, Machiavelli’s formal goals and real goals are identical—he does not waste our time by reasoning from moral principles or abstractions of any kind. From this, however, we can see some internal tension in Burnham’s claims. Machiavelli sought how a state might achieve prosperity and the rule of law; most would, if those were shared by every citizen, define those as the key elements of both the good society and social welfare. As we will see, however, Burnham ultimately concludes that the search for power itself can lead to these results; they are secondary, if beneficial, effects of men’s real actions properly channeled, rather than prime goals.
Machiavelli does not claim that because men seek power over all other goals, that every man is completely identical in his political motivations and actions. Most crucially, men as a whole divide roughly into the rulers and the ruled, each the result of different impulses and psychology, as well as luck. (At several points in The Machiavellians, Burnham suggests that psychology will progress until it is able to offer the precision and accuracy of the hard sciences, such as chemistry or physics. This was a common belief of his time, although now it is obvious that psychology, like most or all the so-called social sciences, is a mere pseudo-science and probably takes more away from our society than it adds.) The key difference between the types of men, as it relates to politics, is not moral; it is the presence of virtù, along with a good dose of fraud, that tends to distinguish the ruler type. The interplay of the types of mankind leads to politics, buffeted by history and by Fortune. No perfect state is possible; the only question is what is the best state for a time and place, given these underlying truths. Burnham, for example, claims that he can know with total certainty that Machiavelli’s ideal state in the abstract was a republic, but he nonetheless wanted a monarchy in order to unify Italy.
After this discussion, which is really introduction, Burnham turns to his four thinkers, the Machiavellians. First up is Mosca, an Italian who lived from 1858 to 1941. His most famous work, and the one on which Burnham focuses, is The Ruling Class, published in 1896 and revised in 1923. Mosca rejected unitary theories of history, popular at the time, such as racial or climatic. Rather, history is the confluence of many factors, most of them random and interdependent. In other words, Mosca’s approach is scientific, and seeks only the truth. Mosca’s great truth, not original but updated for the modern age, is that every society, always and everywhere, has two general groupings, the rulers and the ruled. The specifics vary greatly, to be sure, but the groupings remain, and none of the form of government, the dominant culture, or any other factor often seen as crucial to social structures, change this essential truth.
This implies that true rule by an individual is impossible—even a theoretical total autocrat must depend on many others to implement his wishes, and those helpers are the ruling class (usually itself divided into upper and lower strata). It also implies that rule by the majority is equally impossible—power always defaults to a minority, who are better organized and otherwise more competent. The larger the political community, in fact, the smaller a proportion of the whole is the ruling class. (This analysis has a good deal in common with what is now called public choice theory.) Finally, it is only the ruling class that matters for the destiny of a nation. “A nation’s strength or weakness, its culture, its power of endurance, its prosperity, its decadence, depend in the first instance upon the nature of its ruling class.” Even if the mass, by violent action, overthrows the ruling class, its only effect is to create a new ruling class, never to have any other relevance in and of itself.
How does the ruling class come to exist? Not through Darwinian struggle for existence, but through a struggle for social pre-eminence. In this struggle, hard work and ambition are the key drivers, followed by intuition and confidence in oneself, as well as characteristics specific to preeminence in a particular society (e.g., warrior status in some times, commercial talent in others, what Mosca calls “social forces”). Moral principles are not relevant. A ruling class can maintain its position as long as it controls the relevant social forces; when those change, the ruling class tends to be replaced, sometimes wholesale, but more often by admission of new types of people. Ruling classes, of course, see themselves as ruling through some “political formula,” such as divine right or racial superiority, or simple tradition, but that is a fiction, although one necessary to maintain the ruling class.
Within this framework, just as Machiavelli did, Mosca does have an opinion about what the best achievable form of government is. Given the struggle for preeminence, that government system is best which achieves “juridical defense,” the rule of law, rather than arbitrary rule, which is tyranny, and which includes certain core freedoms, such as association, assembly, religion, and speech. Although autocracy is fully compatible with the rule of law, Mosca also believes that sclerosis and corruption tend to follow an excessively autocratic regime; thus, a society can flourish and progress when the ruling class diffuses power among it, and the rule of law is paramount, for which desirable result checks and balances are the primary tool.
Next, Burnham very briefly covers Sorel. He is a Machiavellian because he is anti-formalist and he views all politics as the struggle for social power, and he matters mostly because he influenced Michels and Pareto. Sorel specifically saw the struggle for socialism as doomed, because if it succeeded, it would only result in a new ruling class, not the freedom of the masses. The only solution was no organized politics at all, the worker self-organization of syndicalism, achieved through the spontaneous and catastrophic general strike. Sorel thought this not only unlikely, but impossible. However, the myth is what matters; it moves the revolutionists, in a fashion that prevents hijacking by those already in charge. Part of what is needed is violence; it is true that violence has declined in the modern world, but this is in large part because the ruling class abhors violence as a threat to itself, and instead rules by fraud, thereby more effectively maintaining their own rule. Accepting violence as the price of remaking society for the benefit of workers will, in point of fact, likely reduce violence by ending wars—but Sorel is no utopian, and in fact a realist/pessimist. Whether this is a legitimate interpretation of Sorel, I do not know—but this section could easily be omitted from the book, and nobody would notice.
Third is Michels, author of the 1911 book Political Parties, a book whose name does not really indicate what it is about. But its subtitle does: “A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy.” Michels coined the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which states that, accurately, and explains why, no matter how a group is formed, or under what principles it operates, it will be ruled by a minority of its members. For Michels, all human societies result in the forming of organizations, that is to say, groups of less than the whole, based on common interests. Universally, within any group, democracy gives way to oligarchy. The mass, that is, the crowd, always yields to leadership (shades of Gustave Le Bon), because most members of the mass are either incapable or can’t be bothered to prioritize leading; because often decisions must be made quickly, and mass consent is impossible to obtain in a timely fashion (or at all); and leadership itself requires rarely-found devotion to the group’s aims, as well as talent for the very complex nature of running any organization. Thus, any organization will quickly find itself in possession of a dominant sub-group, the leaders. One can, and hyper-egalitarians do, eliminate titles; you cannot eliminate the fact of leaders. No matter the supposed adherence to democracy, sovereignty in fact resides in those leaders, and the mass is happy with this result. These leaders tend, over time, to entrench and enrich themselves (Michels primarily studied trade unions, and Burnham speaks of American unions of the 1930s and 1940s, but it is all the same), thereby forming an oligarchy.
The ultimate result, in the political realm, is a tendency toward Bonapartism, exemplified by Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon III, in which the will of the mass is, in the view of the leader, concentrated in himself, such that his decisions are unimpeachable. He is “the executive organ of the popular will.” Burnham, channeling Michels, says this, democratic despotism, is the “logical culmination of democracy.” This possibility is also something Carl Schmitt, writing a decade later, pointed out in his The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. Still, it is not something we have seen in the past eighty years, but certainly in the 1940s it appeared to be the coming thing, and as we will see, Burnham put a new spin on the concept.
Last, we cover Pareto. Nobody reads Pareto today . . . [Review continues as first comment.]
June 5, 2020
The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom was originally published as The Modern Machiavellians. The renaming seems to make it more in line with American conservative rhetoric around liberty--a concern Burnham would not have had in the early 1940s. James Burnham was always the post-Trotskyist Marxist turned liberal reactionary par excellence, ambivalently responsible for National Review and part of the thinkers in selected by George Kennan for the OSS. Fascinatingly, here because he turns his Marxist love of materialist political analysis away from Marxism and into the theories of five key thinkers: Niccolò Machiavelli, Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels, and Vilfredo Pareto. While several will attribute this to a conservative critique of the bad faith of Utopian politics but miss that all the thinkers with the exception of Machevilli are indirectly linked with fascism in some key way and for a book written in 1943, this is not an insignificant argument. Furthermore, Mosca was further developed by Michels and Pareto, about the function of elites. All of them were distant thinkers informed by either Marxism or anarchism but who give up on fighting the power elite and instead try to make it socially productive. So some people will read this as a statement of "conservative political philosophy" but it is not from the US political tradition and, in some ways, comes from the hangover that Burnham seems to have had after writing the Managerial Revolution and break away from Trotskyism.
The Marxist Paul Mattick commented that Burnham had begun to purge himself of the remnants of that had remained in the Managerial Revolution (which famously enraged George Orwell enough he wrote two reviews of it and whose theories who incorporates into Bernstein, the Trotsky surrogate, in 1984). I am not so sure Burnham actually does here--the hints of Marxist are in Burnham's exposition and interpretation of Dante's utopian Imperial politics in De Monarchia as theology and bad faith self-apologia. It does work well to establish what Machiavellians are not. Dante's political writings are a theological facade for betraying his republic, and that is clear, frankly. The ethical and theological imperatives are figleaves, and we should be made more sterner and more scientific stuff.
Burnhams' readings of Machiavelli are odd in that he takes Machiavelli entirely at his word at face value. Machiavelli's layering of irony is not treated with any seriousness. While parts of Burnham's reading of Machiavelli as an openly transparent force are similar to Marxist thinkers like Gramsci, he seems to not be a very sophisticated reader of the Machiavelli, presenting the Discourses on Livy as nearly entirely in line with the Prince . Machiavelli's cynicism often leads to terrible advice that contradicts his other writings, and Machiavelli did not widely promote the work. Burnham's reading of Machiavelli was an Italian unificationist is frankly very much in contradictions with his other writings and given the citations Burnham is giving, he has to know this. Furthermore, Machiavelli writes in a different spirit from Mosca, Michels, and Pareto, who are, by Burnham's accounts, more "scientific." Sorels is the odd one out here, and the only real link seems to be that Sorel's revisions to the mythic event in syndicalist Marxist are an inspiration to the unspoken f-word in the book: fascism.
There are hidden polemics against Marxism in the books reading of Mosca: Mosca's theories of history are multi-casual and not "monistic." However, in doing so, according to Burnham, Mosca comes up with a theory of the "masses" and the ruling class. While elites are given and some of these are outcomes consistent in what would be worked out by games theory and public theory, the idea that is necessarily only two classes that matter--the rulers and ruled--is, in many ways, more monistic than Marxist analysis. However, Burnham's polemical inconsistencies aside, he does a pretty good job of summarizing Mosca's theories and some of the problematic implications of them for modern representative democratic republics.
Like I mentioned earlier, Sorel's revision to Marxist syndicalism lead to Sorel's love of both Lenin and Giovanni Gentile, two topics that Burnham, the ex-Marxist, cannot really directly deal with, nor can he deal with Sorel's endorsement of anti-semitic writings to spread socialism. Sorel's thesis that the general strike was an animating myth is illuminating, and, sadly, for many Marxists, the concept of revolution has played a similar motivational and eschatological role as have historical figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Now Sorel's theories were about violence and motivation but in general, were against the "materialist" views of Marxist and the need to make politics a science. His inclusion seems odd until you look at what the other thinkers share with him.
Then we have Burnham's reading on Robert Michels, and the inclusion of makes more sense, as Michels was part of the syndicalist drift towards fascism and then became an explicit theorist of fascism as well as being highly influenced by Mosca. Burnham is very quiet about this context and does not contextualize Michels' work: if it is scientific, then why, again does Burnham need to? I could not be that all of the Italian thinkers but one proto-fascist or fascist ties and, like his thesis in the Managerial Revolution, fascists were more likely to control other capitalist elites who have countered society through management? His exposition of Michels iron law of oligarchy is coherent enough and fair, but that lack of context as well as his selection of "scientific political thinkers" becomes more and more suspicious.
Then we have the discussion of Pareto, which is part of the critique against Marxism. According to Burnham. Pareto only seeks to describe and correlate social facts--while this does not strike a non-Marxist as a particular critique of Marxism, remember that Marxists have claimed that Marxism would be a scientific way to understand and change society, not merely correlate it. Burnham's description of Pareto residues is interesting as his reading of the five factors Pareto thinks are important for society: 1) physical environment, 2) residues (or human universal tendencies), 3) economic factors, 4) derivations and 5) the circulation of elites. Admittedly, 1 and 3 are generally talked about in Marxist circles as "material conditions," and 2 are proto-anthropological human tendencies, 4) seems like some that were further developed out in later social science, but it is 5) that concerns Burnham the most. Admittedly, Burnham's readings of Pareto's and the way elite power blocks form in parliamentary societies are haunting.
Yet this scientific turn is not, truly speaking, science. Furthermore, despite this interest in science, all the modern Italian and French thinkers that Burnham invokes are directly linked to fascism. Yes, there are many truisms that Burnham finds: elites drift and are self-interested. Naivete in politics can have disastrous results, but these truisms are not unique to any of these thinkers. Furthermore, if Marxism fails as a science, what Burnham does doubly fails. Almost all his predictions are wrong and seem a reflection of the conditions of Italy and Germany that were beginning to collapse at the time. Military Bonapartism, a hangover from Burnham's Trotskyist days with some real applications, does not become the dominant form of US life despite the existence of a political power elite. Indeed, if anything, after Eisenhower, the trend is away from both the military and civilian competence to people with public relations and legal backgrounds. Furthermore, Burnham predicts that elites in Europe in post-colonial scramble would be back at war in a short period of time--reflecting the conditions of world war 1 and world war 2 but ignoring the nuclear change of the game and the increasing difficulty of the cold war. IN almost all predictions, Burnham takes the conditions of the early forties, conditions that informed the early fascist thinkers, and uses them to predict in the future incorrectly. While applying scientific methodologies and mathematics to politics has greatly helped us, if you cannot see ANY of several major changes coming in the near future, you have failed to produce a useful political analytic rubric that abides by those methodologies. Predictions matter.
The fact that Burnham does not really deal with the fascist current in all the modern political thinkers he chooses would not age well for "defenders of freedom" if people knew who these figures actually were and context for Burnham's selection and his argument with Marxism. Burnham had not yet become the mentor to William Buckley and grand old man at the The National Review. Despite being wrong on many of these predictions, George Kennan did hand select him for the OSS presumably for his scientific bent, but if this writing is a sample of his early post-Marxist thinking, he was given a lot of slack for being wrong in ways that are different from his analysis in The Managerial Revolution which do explain things going on Russia, the US, and Europe fairly well but again picks a losing side in the political forces trying to control management.
The Marxist Paul Mattick commented that Burnham had begun to purge himself of the remnants of that had remained in the Managerial Revolution (which famously enraged George Orwell enough he wrote two reviews of it and whose theories who incorporates into Bernstein, the Trotsky surrogate, in 1984). I am not so sure Burnham actually does here--the hints of Marxist are in Burnham's exposition and interpretation of Dante's utopian Imperial politics in De Monarchia as theology and bad faith self-apologia. It does work well to establish what Machiavellians are not. Dante's political writings are a theological facade for betraying his republic, and that is clear, frankly. The ethical and theological imperatives are figleaves, and we should be made more sterner and more scientific stuff.
Burnhams' readings of Machiavelli are odd in that he takes Machiavelli entirely at his word at face value. Machiavelli's layering of irony is not treated with any seriousness. While parts of Burnham's reading of Machiavelli as an openly transparent force are similar to Marxist thinkers like Gramsci, he seems to not be a very sophisticated reader of the Machiavelli, presenting the Discourses on Livy as nearly entirely in line with the Prince . Machiavelli's cynicism often leads to terrible advice that contradicts his other writings, and Machiavelli did not widely promote the work. Burnham's reading of Machiavelli was an Italian unificationist is frankly very much in contradictions with his other writings and given the citations Burnham is giving, he has to know this. Furthermore, Machiavelli writes in a different spirit from Mosca, Michels, and Pareto, who are, by Burnham's accounts, more "scientific." Sorels is the odd one out here, and the only real link seems to be that Sorel's revisions to the mythic event in syndicalist Marxist are an inspiration to the unspoken f-word in the book: fascism.
There are hidden polemics against Marxism in the books reading of Mosca: Mosca's theories of history are multi-casual and not "monistic." However, in doing so, according to Burnham, Mosca comes up with a theory of the "masses" and the ruling class. While elites are given and some of these are outcomes consistent in what would be worked out by games theory and public theory, the idea that is necessarily only two classes that matter--the rulers and ruled--is, in many ways, more monistic than Marxist analysis. However, Burnham's polemical inconsistencies aside, he does a pretty good job of summarizing Mosca's theories and some of the problematic implications of them for modern representative democratic republics.
Like I mentioned earlier, Sorel's revision to Marxist syndicalism lead to Sorel's love of both Lenin and Giovanni Gentile, two topics that Burnham, the ex-Marxist, cannot really directly deal with, nor can he deal with Sorel's endorsement of anti-semitic writings to spread socialism. Sorel's thesis that the general strike was an animating myth is illuminating, and, sadly, for many Marxists, the concept of revolution has played a similar motivational and eschatological role as have historical figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Now Sorel's theories were about violence and motivation but in general, were against the "materialist" views of Marxist and the need to make politics a science. His inclusion seems odd until you look at what the other thinkers share with him.
Then we have Burnham's reading on Robert Michels, and the inclusion of makes more sense, as Michels was part of the syndicalist drift towards fascism and then became an explicit theorist of fascism as well as being highly influenced by Mosca. Burnham is very quiet about this context and does not contextualize Michels' work: if it is scientific, then why, again does Burnham need to? I could not be that all of the Italian thinkers but one proto-fascist or fascist ties and, like his thesis in the Managerial Revolution, fascists were more likely to control other capitalist elites who have countered society through management? His exposition of Michels iron law of oligarchy is coherent enough and fair, but that lack of context as well as his selection of "scientific political thinkers" becomes more and more suspicious.
Then we have the discussion of Pareto, which is part of the critique against Marxism. According to Burnham. Pareto only seeks to describe and correlate social facts--while this does not strike a non-Marxist as a particular critique of Marxism, remember that Marxists have claimed that Marxism would be a scientific way to understand and change society, not merely correlate it. Burnham's description of Pareto residues is interesting as his reading of the five factors Pareto thinks are important for society: 1) physical environment, 2) residues (or human universal tendencies), 3) economic factors, 4) derivations and 5) the circulation of elites. Admittedly, 1 and 3 are generally talked about in Marxist circles as "material conditions," and 2 are proto-anthropological human tendencies, 4) seems like some that were further developed out in later social science, but it is 5) that concerns Burnham the most. Admittedly, Burnham's readings of Pareto's and the way elite power blocks form in parliamentary societies are haunting.
Yet this scientific turn is not, truly speaking, science. Furthermore, despite this interest in science, all the modern Italian and French thinkers that Burnham invokes are directly linked to fascism. Yes, there are many truisms that Burnham finds: elites drift and are self-interested. Naivete in politics can have disastrous results, but these truisms are not unique to any of these thinkers. Furthermore, if Marxism fails as a science, what Burnham does doubly fails. Almost all his predictions are wrong and seem a reflection of the conditions of Italy and Germany that were beginning to collapse at the time. Military Bonapartism, a hangover from Burnham's Trotskyist days with some real applications, does not become the dominant form of US life despite the existence of a political power elite. Indeed, if anything, after Eisenhower, the trend is away from both the military and civilian competence to people with public relations and legal backgrounds. Furthermore, Burnham predicts that elites in Europe in post-colonial scramble would be back at war in a short period of time--reflecting the conditions of world war 1 and world war 2 but ignoring the nuclear change of the game and the increasing difficulty of the cold war. IN almost all predictions, Burnham takes the conditions of the early forties, conditions that informed the early fascist thinkers, and uses them to predict in the future incorrectly. While applying scientific methodologies and mathematics to politics has greatly helped us, if you cannot see ANY of several major changes coming in the near future, you have failed to produce a useful political analytic rubric that abides by those methodologies. Predictions matter.
The fact that Burnham does not really deal with the fascist current in all the modern political thinkers he chooses would not age well for "defenders of freedom" if people knew who these figures actually were and context for Burnham's selection and his argument with Marxism. Burnham had not yet become the mentor to William Buckley and grand old man at the The National Review. Despite being wrong on many of these predictions, George Kennan did hand select him for the OSS presumably for his scientific bent, but if this writing is a sample of his early post-Marxist thinking, he was given a lot of slack for being wrong in ways that are different from his analysis in The Managerial Revolution which do explain things going on Russia, the US, and Europe fairly well but again picks a losing side in the political forces trying to control management.
November 12, 2020
Moved to gwern.net.
September 3, 2019
A good summery of the works of greater men, but little else. Burnham’s understanding adds almost nothing to the text, however, as a history of realist political theory it is excellent. Burnham’s own analysis is poor, he gets hung up on marking political theory a “science,” and he’s too attached to the balance of power theory in government.
I think I’ll go read some Vilfredo Pareto now... 😏
I think I’ll go read some Vilfredo Pareto now... 😏
June 30, 2020
Nominally about “five Italian philosophers,” but that summary is a little misleading. More accurately, this book is Burnham’s framework for understanding power in a political context. “No theory, no promises, no morality, no amount of good will, no religion will restrain power” he writes. “Only power restrains power.”
October 25, 2022
Brilliant book a pure realist breakdown of Democracy. The crux of the book seems to be that all ruling powers in every system of government are elitist, they may be voted out or kicked out by other means to be replaced by another elitist group. All of Burnham's Machiavellians agree on this cycle of elites point. Other than that the chapter on Pareto was a treat, his theory of residues and derivations and the impact of these two on each other seemed very reasonable. In the final two chapters, Burnham gives his views on democracy and those small chapters alone are better than the entire book "how civil war starts"(it's a crappy book don't read it). Overall this was a phenomenal book which I'll be reading again.
April 22, 2021
This book is an odd, but powerful refutation of the notion of democracy and that society can avoid being ruled by a small number of elites.
Growing up, I somehow inhaled the American notion that, until the founding of America, most nations were largely limited in what they could do, and that with the innovation of voting, the world had turned a corner and most individuals were better off. I still am profoundly grateful for American notions of liberty and freedom, and this book made me appreciate those liberties even more. However, for a long time now, I have not seen democracy as the source of those freedoms, individual or otherwise, and Burnham has the uncanny ability to point out how democracy actually aggravates individual liberty rather than increasing it.
There's a lot of places to go here, but I want to get a few things out of the way. James Burnham had an odd checkered past as a Trotsykyite and a communist before starting to write for the National Review and becoming a conservative author, with Suicide of the West being his best well-known work. In this book you definitely feel a sense of his middle-aged atheism in how he talks about "non-logical" (read religious) behavior. (He returned to religion in old age.) You also get a sense of his being a logical positivist, perhaps in how he talks about politics as a science.
At the same time, most of Burnham's arguments make sense with what I see of how people act. He is perhaps dismissive of Aristotle and other philosophers, but then again, Taleb points out that philosophers have not been the best political thinkers. At any rate, Burnham makes the rather obvious point that no society can vote on all political decisions, and even if most people wanted to do so, in order to achieve their goals, they would have to join coalitions led by representatives. This means that, without exception, most societies will be governed by a minority, by an elite class. Ironically, rather than restraining power, the idea of democracy tends to absolutize power. After all, if we all believe that our elites are simply us, without any sense of representation and the responsibility that brings with it, it is far easier for some dictator to come along and claim that, because he simply is the will of the people, he can use absolute power. Burnham expresses this by saying that democracy leads to Bonapartism.
This is a powerful argument, and it's an invaluable part of Burnham. However, the best part of the book is the last part, where he talks about how a good elite functions, and how freedom can actually exist in a society. He says that societies consist of a innovative, enterprising, even conniving element, and of a conservative, steady, force-wielding element. He says society must have both elements in the elite, or society will stagnate through conservatism or fail to exert order through too much liberalism. He also insists that the elite should be both aristocratic in some ways (policing its ranks), but also open to up-and-comers from below (meritocratic.) He says that some elites lose their will to rule and retreat into art, style, and decadence, lest it lose power through some sort of social revolution. One of the most fascinating points that Burnham makes is that societies are less violent if they admit the necessity of violence. Violence is inevitable in this world, until Judgment Day, and Burnham knows this and at several points recognizes the importance of the elite having the will to rule. As Christians in an egalitarian world, we often act like Aragorn in Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, or like Harry Potter or any number of modern protagonists who never feel competent to judge or make tough decisions. Burnham adds to the many voices in my head saying that authority is how God made the world and we do better to acknowledge it with all its problems than to kill it through demands for perfection.
In the last few explosive pages he argues that we are entering a managerial age, which fits with his , the idea that the capitalists are being overwhelmed by the bureaucrats, because in his day the entrepreneurs had lost the will to rule. He insists that for society to be free in any sense that is meaningful, there must be competing interests, with no one power preventing opposition. Burnham points out that, despite all the promise of democracy, the Nazi and Soviet regimes were not as free as the American regime.
Burnham ends on a fascinating point: "Only power restrains power. That restraining power is expressed in the existence and activity of oppositions. Oddly and fortunately, it is observable that the restraining influence of an opposition much exceeds its apparent strength. As anyone with experience in any organization knows, even a small opposition, provided it really exists and is active, can block to a remarkable degree the excesses of the leadership." (223) Burnham, of course, knows that this cannot be a mere grassroots movement. It has to be the elite that is involved in this social change, but Burnham does think that social pressure from the masses can infiltrate inner-elite fights: "Confronted with this multiple attack [from elites and masses], the governing elite, in order to try to keep control, is in turn compelled to grant certain concessions and to correct at least some of the more glaring abuses. The net indirect result of the struggle, which from one point of view is only a fight between two sets of leaders, can thus be benefits for large sections of the masses. The masses, blocked by the iron law of oligarchy from directly and deliberately ruling themselves, are able to limit and control, indirectly, the power of their rulers." (emphasis added).
There is a lot in this last bit in the book. I am reminded of the title of Taleb's book Intransigent Minorities. This seems to be a reasonable model of social order that avoids the extremes of both totalitarianism and anarchy, and avoids the foolish idea that any individual or party can run the state through sufficient lobbying while also avoiding the idea that individuals can utterly passive in the face of government. It also gets at the best of checks and balances and Republican government without exaggerating the influence of the Constitution along, say, American Vision lines. At any rate, this is a good book that people into conservative political theology should read.
Growing up, I somehow inhaled the American notion that, until the founding of America, most nations were largely limited in what they could do, and that with the innovation of voting, the world had turned a corner and most individuals were better off. I still am profoundly grateful for American notions of liberty and freedom, and this book made me appreciate those liberties even more. However, for a long time now, I have not seen democracy as the source of those freedoms, individual or otherwise, and Burnham has the uncanny ability to point out how democracy actually aggravates individual liberty rather than increasing it.
There's a lot of places to go here, but I want to get a few things out of the way. James Burnham had an odd checkered past as a Trotsykyite and a communist before starting to write for the National Review and becoming a conservative author, with Suicide of the West being his best well-known work. In this book you definitely feel a sense of his middle-aged atheism in how he talks about "non-logical" (read religious) behavior. (He returned to religion in old age.) You also get a sense of his being a logical positivist, perhaps in how he talks about politics as a science.
At the same time, most of Burnham's arguments make sense with what I see of how people act. He is perhaps dismissive of Aristotle and other philosophers, but then again, Taleb points out that philosophers have not been the best political thinkers. At any rate, Burnham makes the rather obvious point that no society can vote on all political decisions, and even if most people wanted to do so, in order to achieve their goals, they would have to join coalitions led by representatives. This means that, without exception, most societies will be governed by a minority, by an elite class. Ironically, rather than restraining power, the idea of democracy tends to absolutize power. After all, if we all believe that our elites are simply us, without any sense of representation and the responsibility that brings with it, it is far easier for some dictator to come along and claim that, because he simply is the will of the people, he can use absolute power. Burnham expresses this by saying that democracy leads to Bonapartism.
This is a powerful argument, and it's an invaluable part of Burnham. However, the best part of the book is the last part, where he talks about how a good elite functions, and how freedom can actually exist in a society. He says that societies consist of a innovative, enterprising, even conniving element, and of a conservative, steady, force-wielding element. He says society must have both elements in the elite, or society will stagnate through conservatism or fail to exert order through too much liberalism. He also insists that the elite should be both aristocratic in some ways (policing its ranks), but also open to up-and-comers from below (meritocratic.) He says that some elites lose their will to rule and retreat into art, style, and decadence, lest it lose power through some sort of social revolution. One of the most fascinating points that Burnham makes is that societies are less violent if they admit the necessity of violence. Violence is inevitable in this world, until Judgment Day, and Burnham knows this and at several points recognizes the importance of the elite having the will to rule. As Christians in an egalitarian world, we often act like Aragorn in Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, or like Harry Potter or any number of modern protagonists who never feel competent to judge or make tough decisions. Burnham adds to the many voices in my head saying that authority is how God made the world and we do better to acknowledge it with all its problems than to kill it through demands for perfection.
In the last few explosive pages he argues that we are entering a managerial age, which fits with his , the idea that the capitalists are being overwhelmed by the bureaucrats, because in his day the entrepreneurs had lost the will to rule. He insists that for society to be free in any sense that is meaningful, there must be competing interests, with no one power preventing opposition. Burnham points out that, despite all the promise of democracy, the Nazi and Soviet regimes were not as free as the American regime.
Burnham ends on a fascinating point: "Only power restrains power. That restraining power is expressed in the existence and activity of oppositions. Oddly and fortunately, it is observable that the restraining influence of an opposition much exceeds its apparent strength. As anyone with experience in any organization knows, even a small opposition, provided it really exists and is active, can block to a remarkable degree the excesses of the leadership." (223) Burnham, of course, knows that this cannot be a mere grassroots movement. It has to be the elite that is involved in this social change, but Burnham does think that social pressure from the masses can infiltrate inner-elite fights: "Confronted with this multiple attack [from elites and masses], the governing elite, in order to try to keep control, is in turn compelled to grant certain concessions and to correct at least some of the more glaring abuses. The net indirect result of the struggle, which from one point of view is only a fight between two sets of leaders, can thus be benefits for large sections of the masses. The masses, blocked by the iron law of oligarchy from directly and deliberately ruling themselves, are able to limit and control, indirectly, the power of their rulers." (emphasis added).
There is a lot in this last bit in the book. I am reminded of the title of Taleb's book Intransigent Minorities. This seems to be a reasonable model of social order that avoids the extremes of both totalitarianism and anarchy, and avoids the foolish idea that any individual or party can run the state through sufficient lobbying while also avoiding the idea that individuals can utterly passive in the face of government. It also gets at the best of checks and balances and Republican government without exaggerating the influence of the Constitution along, say, American Vision lines. At any rate, this is a good book that people into conservative political theology should read.
August 21, 2023
The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham is a memorable work of political theory, providing an account of the modern Machiavellians, a rag-tag group of thinkers who were influential in Europe but otherwise unknown in the United States. This would unsurprisingly include the eponymous figure himself, but also includes other Machiavellians as Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. Burnham contends that the writings of these men hold the key both to the truth about politics and to the preservation of political liberty. I've divided my review into the figures Burnham focuses on and then his own ideas in relation to these thinkers.
Extended review of The Machiavellians at my Substack
The Machiavellians
In Burnham's reading, Machiavelli is the founder of the modern Machiavellian tradition, which rejects the idealistic and moralistic approach to politics (the approach that dominates in America) and instead focuses on a realistic and pragmatic analysis of power. To oversimplify, Machiavelli argues that a ruler must be guided by his own interest and the interest of his state and use any means necessary to achieve his goals, even if they are immoral or cruel. Machiavelli also recognizes that human nature is driven by base passions and that a ruler must manipulate these passions to maintain his authority and popularity. Burnham praises Machiavelli for his scientific and empirical method of studying politics, and for his recognition of the importance of force, fraud and fortune in political affairs. Burnham provocatively argues that this is the nature of political power and that honest recognition of this is superior to fantasies about true diffusion of power or a society free of coercion.
Gaetano Mosca is the founder of the elitist theory of democracy, which argues that all societies are ruled by a minority of people who have superior organizational skills, intelligence, and resources. Mosca calls this minority the political class or the ruling class, and claims that it is inevitable and necessary for any society to function. Mosca also distinguishes between two types of elites: the governing elite, which holds the actual power, and the non-governing elite, which influences public opinion and culture. Mosca argues that democracy is essentially a myth and that the masses are always manipulated by the elites through various means, such as ideology, religion, propaganda and education. Burnham agrees with Mosca's analysis of the nature and role of elites in society, but criticizes him for his overly conservative and pessimistic attitude towards social change. Both Mosca and Burnham's ideas on this front have been roundly rejected or ignored in mainstream political discourse, but have recently gained greater foothold in various circles, especially among dissidents and counter-elites.
Machiavellian number three (and maybe the most unruly one) is Georges Sorel. Sorel is the founder of the revolutionary syndicalist movement, which advocated for a violent overthrow of capitalism by the working class through a general strike. Sorel rejects both democracy and socialism as forms of deception and corruption, and instead proposes a new ethic based on violence, heroism and sacrifice. Sorel also introduced the concept of the myth, which is a powerful idea or image that inspires and mobilizes people to action. Sorel's main myth is that of the general strike, which he sees as a cataclysmic event that will destroy the existing order and create a new one based on workers' autonomy and solidarity. Burnham admires Sorel's critique of democracy and socialism, but is wary of his reliance on violence and myth as sources of social transformation.
Robert Michels is the originator of the "iron law of oligarchy," which states that all forms of organization, regardless of their democratic or socialist ideals, tend to become oligarchic over time. Michels argues that this is due to several factors, such as the need for specialization, coordination, discipline and leadership in any complex organization. Michels also claims that leaders tend to develop their own interests and privileges separate from those of their followers, and use various techniques to maintain their power, such as co-optation, manipulation, patronage and repression. Michels applies his theory mainly to political parties and trade unions, which he sees as examples of oligarchic degeneration. Burnham accepts Michels' theory as a valid explanation of the dynamics of organization, but questions his assumption that oligarchy is inevitable and irreversible.
The final Machiavellian, Vilfredo Pareto, is maybe the most influential and impressive of the bunch. Founder of the circulation of elites theory, which states that history is driven by the constant replacement of one elite by another through a process of selection and elimination (something Peter Turchin is recycling today in his latest book End Times), Pareto argues that elites are composed of two types of people: lions, who are strong, courageous, and conservative; and foxes, who are cunning, innovative, and liberal. Pareto also distinguishes between two types of residues: instincts or sentiments; and derivations or rationalizations. Residues are the psychological motives that drive human action; derivations are the logical arguments that justify human action. Pareto claims that human action is mostly determined by residues rather than by derivations; therefore most people are irrational rather than rational. Pareto also introduces the concept of social equilibrium or disequilibrium; when an elite becomes decadent or incompetent; it loses its legitimacy and is replaced by a new elite that restores the social equilibrium. Burnham is especially influenced by Pareto's contribution to political theory, especially his understanding of human psychology and social change.
Burnham's Thesis
Burnham's central argument that continues through the discussion of the Machiavellians is that there is a fundamental distinction between the formal and the real aspects of politics. The formal aspect refers to the official institutions, laws, ideologies and doctrines that are publicly professed and accepted by the masses. The real aspect refers to the actual distribution and exercise of power, influence and interests among the ruling elites and social forces. Burnham argues that the formal aspect is largely a fiction or mask that conceals the real aspect, which is governed by the laws of political life that are discovered and expounded by the Machiavellians. This position may seem a bit conspiratorial, but with respect to human psychology and the fact that the theory requires no coordination, it is pretty plausible just on its face.
The laws of political life are based on a realistic and empirical observation of human nature and social dynamics. This includes the ideas of the Machiavellians: iron law of oligarchy, circulation of elites, the role of force, and the role of myths. Burnham claims that these laws reveal the true nature of politics as a struggle for power among competing elites, who use various forms of deception, manipulation, and coercion to maintain or increase their dominance. He also claims that these laws provide a scientific basis for the defense of political liberty, which he defines as the condition in which no single elite group can monopolize power and impose its will on the rest of society. He argues that political liberty can be preserved only by creating a balance of power among different elite groups, who check and limit each other's ambitions. He also argues that political liberty requires a constant vigilance and skepticism from the public, who should not be deceived by the formal fictions or the mythical ideologies of the ruling elites .
Burnham's book is a provocative and challenging contribution to political theory and practice. It offers a penetrating analysis of the hidden realities of power and interests behind the apparent forms and doctrines of politics. It also offers a valuable and original perspective on the defense of political liberty, which is based on a realistic and pragmatic understanding of human nature and social dynamics.
However, we shouldn't let Burnham's idea, despite are their force and persuasion, escape critique. He relies on a narrow and selective range of sources, primarily European thinkers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, without engaging some of the other more canonical political thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Weber or Durkheim. In some ways, it is a surprise that Hobbes was omitted by Burnham, but the biggest oversights are probably Smith and Hume. Burnham's ideas overlook a number of other important material factors that shape political outcomes, especially powerful cultural, psychological, and economic factors. Some of this is just beyond 1943 and Burnham's expertise and would be unfair to wield against him. I am also unsure how much these scientific factors actually detract from his central claim. In some ways, these findings I gesturing at would strengthen his argument. Perhaps the weakest point of the book is Burnham's vagueness about the nature of liberty. His ambiguity about his own normative stance and political orientation, which was probably evolving rapidly at the time, makes it hard to know exactly what freedoms Burnham thinks the Machiavellians are protecting. He might have clarified this in his other writing, which I need to catch up on.
Ultimately, The Machiavellians is a thoughtful and provocative exploration of uncomfortable but likely true political realities, drawing out their enduring relevance to contemporary politics. Burnham argues that the Machiavellians provide a realistic and scientific approach to politics that exposes the illusions of democracy and other types of egalitarian arrangements. Burnham also suggests that the Machiavellians offer a defense of political liberty against the threats of totalitarianism and tyranny.
Extended review of The Machiavellians at my Substack
The Machiavellians
In Burnham's reading, Machiavelli is the founder of the modern Machiavellian tradition, which rejects the idealistic and moralistic approach to politics (the approach that dominates in America) and instead focuses on a realistic and pragmatic analysis of power. To oversimplify, Machiavelli argues that a ruler must be guided by his own interest and the interest of his state and use any means necessary to achieve his goals, even if they are immoral or cruel. Machiavelli also recognizes that human nature is driven by base passions and that a ruler must manipulate these passions to maintain his authority and popularity. Burnham praises Machiavelli for his scientific and empirical method of studying politics, and for his recognition of the importance of force, fraud and fortune in political affairs. Burnham provocatively argues that this is the nature of political power and that honest recognition of this is superior to fantasies about true diffusion of power or a society free of coercion.
Gaetano Mosca is the founder of the elitist theory of democracy, which argues that all societies are ruled by a minority of people who have superior organizational skills, intelligence, and resources. Mosca calls this minority the political class or the ruling class, and claims that it is inevitable and necessary for any society to function. Mosca also distinguishes between two types of elites: the governing elite, which holds the actual power, and the non-governing elite, which influences public opinion and culture. Mosca argues that democracy is essentially a myth and that the masses are always manipulated by the elites through various means, such as ideology, religion, propaganda and education. Burnham agrees with Mosca's analysis of the nature and role of elites in society, but criticizes him for his overly conservative and pessimistic attitude towards social change. Both Mosca and Burnham's ideas on this front have been roundly rejected or ignored in mainstream political discourse, but have recently gained greater foothold in various circles, especially among dissidents and counter-elites.
Machiavellian number three (and maybe the most unruly one) is Georges Sorel. Sorel is the founder of the revolutionary syndicalist movement, which advocated for a violent overthrow of capitalism by the working class through a general strike. Sorel rejects both democracy and socialism as forms of deception and corruption, and instead proposes a new ethic based on violence, heroism and sacrifice. Sorel also introduced the concept of the myth, which is a powerful idea or image that inspires and mobilizes people to action. Sorel's main myth is that of the general strike, which he sees as a cataclysmic event that will destroy the existing order and create a new one based on workers' autonomy and solidarity. Burnham admires Sorel's critique of democracy and socialism, but is wary of his reliance on violence and myth as sources of social transformation.
Robert Michels is the originator of the "iron law of oligarchy," which states that all forms of organization, regardless of their democratic or socialist ideals, tend to become oligarchic over time. Michels argues that this is due to several factors, such as the need for specialization, coordination, discipline and leadership in any complex organization. Michels also claims that leaders tend to develop their own interests and privileges separate from those of their followers, and use various techniques to maintain their power, such as co-optation, manipulation, patronage and repression. Michels applies his theory mainly to political parties and trade unions, which he sees as examples of oligarchic degeneration. Burnham accepts Michels' theory as a valid explanation of the dynamics of organization, but questions his assumption that oligarchy is inevitable and irreversible.
The final Machiavellian, Vilfredo Pareto, is maybe the most influential and impressive of the bunch. Founder of the circulation of elites theory, which states that history is driven by the constant replacement of one elite by another through a process of selection and elimination (something Peter Turchin is recycling today in his latest book End Times), Pareto argues that elites are composed of two types of people: lions, who are strong, courageous, and conservative; and foxes, who are cunning, innovative, and liberal. Pareto also distinguishes between two types of residues: instincts or sentiments; and derivations or rationalizations. Residues are the psychological motives that drive human action; derivations are the logical arguments that justify human action. Pareto claims that human action is mostly determined by residues rather than by derivations; therefore most people are irrational rather than rational. Pareto also introduces the concept of social equilibrium or disequilibrium; when an elite becomes decadent or incompetent; it loses its legitimacy and is replaced by a new elite that restores the social equilibrium. Burnham is especially influenced by Pareto's contribution to political theory, especially his understanding of human psychology and social change.
Burnham's Thesis
Burnham's central argument that continues through the discussion of the Machiavellians is that there is a fundamental distinction between the formal and the real aspects of politics. The formal aspect refers to the official institutions, laws, ideologies and doctrines that are publicly professed and accepted by the masses. The real aspect refers to the actual distribution and exercise of power, influence and interests among the ruling elites and social forces. Burnham argues that the formal aspect is largely a fiction or mask that conceals the real aspect, which is governed by the laws of political life that are discovered and expounded by the Machiavellians. This position may seem a bit conspiratorial, but with respect to human psychology and the fact that the theory requires no coordination, it is pretty plausible just on its face.
The laws of political life are based on a realistic and empirical observation of human nature and social dynamics. This includes the ideas of the Machiavellians: iron law of oligarchy, circulation of elites, the role of force, and the role of myths. Burnham claims that these laws reveal the true nature of politics as a struggle for power among competing elites, who use various forms of deception, manipulation, and coercion to maintain or increase their dominance. He also claims that these laws provide a scientific basis for the defense of political liberty, which he defines as the condition in which no single elite group can monopolize power and impose its will on the rest of society. He argues that political liberty can be preserved only by creating a balance of power among different elite groups, who check and limit each other's ambitions. He also argues that political liberty requires a constant vigilance and skepticism from the public, who should not be deceived by the formal fictions or the mythical ideologies of the ruling elites .
Burnham's book is a provocative and challenging contribution to political theory and practice. It offers a penetrating analysis of the hidden realities of power and interests behind the apparent forms and doctrines of politics. It also offers a valuable and original perspective on the defense of political liberty, which is based on a realistic and pragmatic understanding of human nature and social dynamics.
However, we shouldn't let Burnham's idea, despite are their force and persuasion, escape critique. He relies on a narrow and selective range of sources, primarily European thinkers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, without engaging some of the other more canonical political thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Weber or Durkheim. In some ways, it is a surprise that Hobbes was omitted by Burnham, but the biggest oversights are probably Smith and Hume. Burnham's ideas overlook a number of other important material factors that shape political outcomes, especially powerful cultural, psychological, and economic factors. Some of this is just beyond 1943 and Burnham's expertise and would be unfair to wield against him. I am also unsure how much these scientific factors actually detract from his central claim. In some ways, these findings I gesturing at would strengthen his argument. Perhaps the weakest point of the book is Burnham's vagueness about the nature of liberty. His ambiguity about his own normative stance and political orientation, which was probably evolving rapidly at the time, makes it hard to know exactly what freedoms Burnham thinks the Machiavellians are protecting. He might have clarified this in his other writing, which I need to catch up on.
Ultimately, The Machiavellians is a thoughtful and provocative exploration of uncomfortable but likely true political realities, drawing out their enduring relevance to contemporary politics. Burnham argues that the Machiavellians provide a realistic and scientific approach to politics that exposes the illusions of democracy and other types of egalitarian arrangements. Burnham also suggests that the Machiavellians offer a defense of political liberty against the threats of totalitarianism and tyranny.
October 26, 2020
This book has become a bit of a cult classic. And no wonder: Burnham's book is witty, well-written, and compellingly argued. This despite the fact that Burnham is not being especially faithful to Machiavelli. His interpretation of Machiavelli and his followers is heavily skewed by classical liberal and conservative principles. But the truth of the book, if you can call it that, or the power of the book (to use a more Machiavellian metaphor) has less to do with Machiavelli himself and more with its brilliant synthesis of four Italian Neo-Machiavellians: Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. Through them, the book exposes some eternal truths of human nature and human social organization in light of the dark undercurrents of 20th century political theory.
Machiavelli himself, although often misunderstood, remains an important corrective to the perennial romance of politics. And the 20th century thinkers that the book studies, whether the moniker Neo-Machiavellian is quite accurate or not, make for a brilliant mix. They all offer mutually supporting analyses of hierarchical power relations, the quirks of social organization, and the limits of political achievement. Through the Machiavellian lens, Burnham provides fascinating analyses of the frailty of human institutions, the inevitability of power hierarchies, the importance of individual freedom, and the perennial gullibility of people.
I really liked the book. Stylistically, the reader is swept away by Burnham's seductive prose. This can be a problem if the reader is seduced by the analysis to overlook its suggestive and idiosyncratic nature. As I wish to emphasize, the book uses Machiavelli and the Machiavellians strategically, not only to understand perennial human nature, but to argue towards an American neoconservative conclusion. This means that some nuances of Machiavellian scholarship, for example of the role of The Prince as a self-promotional and potentially tongue-in-cheek treatise, are either ignored or downplayed. At the same time, Burnham's masterful synthesis of the Italian thinkers is better than orthodox Machiavellianism, since it involves a powerful display of originality and will power. If you are willing to overlook its excesses and ambiguities, it reveals the profundity of Realism.
Machiavelli himself, although often misunderstood, remains an important corrective to the perennial romance of politics. And the 20th century thinkers that the book studies, whether the moniker Neo-Machiavellian is quite accurate or not, make for a brilliant mix. They all offer mutually supporting analyses of hierarchical power relations, the quirks of social organization, and the limits of political achievement. Through the Machiavellian lens, Burnham provides fascinating analyses of the frailty of human institutions, the inevitability of power hierarchies, the importance of individual freedom, and the perennial gullibility of people.
I really liked the book. Stylistically, the reader is swept away by Burnham's seductive prose. This can be a problem if the reader is seduced by the analysis to overlook its suggestive and idiosyncratic nature. As I wish to emphasize, the book uses Machiavelli and the Machiavellians strategically, not only to understand perennial human nature, but to argue towards an American neoconservative conclusion. This means that some nuances of Machiavellian scholarship, for example of the role of The Prince as a self-promotional and potentially tongue-in-cheek treatise, are either ignored or downplayed. At the same time, Burnham's masterful synthesis of the Italian thinkers is better than orthodox Machiavellianism, since it involves a powerful display of originality and will power. If you are willing to overlook its excesses and ambiguities, it reveals the profundity of Realism.
September 9, 2019
I had just started looking for a good history of political theory when my book club started this book. It touched on many questions I had pondered myself, and expanded my thinking. I now know of some other likely good reading based on the author's overview.
Burnham covers Machiavelli, Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel (briefly), Robert Michels, and Vilfredo Pareto, before wrapping up the book with his own analysis of his time (the 1940's). All of them except Machiavelli were mostly new to me and their ideas were described in an easy-to-read way. This was a great start to political theory, at least for this set of theorists Burnham calls Machiavellians. His overview of Pareto, in particular, was full of interesting bits to mull over and pick at.
The only fault was the author's constant praise of the scientific nature of the Machiavellians. One would almost think that they were angels. He spends a good amount of time talking about myth vs science, and while praising the latter, ends the book with: "Though the change will never lead to the perfect society of our dreams, we may hope that it will permit human beings at least that minimum of moral dignity which alone can justify the strange accident of man’s existence", which could be considered a mythical belief by his standards.
Burnham covers Machiavelli, Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel (briefly), Robert Michels, and Vilfredo Pareto, before wrapping up the book with his own analysis of his time (the 1940's). All of them except Machiavelli were mostly new to me and their ideas were described in an easy-to-read way. This was a great start to political theory, at least for this set of theorists Burnham calls Machiavellians. His overview of Pareto, in particular, was full of interesting bits to mull over and pick at.
The only fault was the author's constant praise of the scientific nature of the Machiavellians. One would almost think that they were angels. He spends a good amount of time talking about myth vs science, and while praising the latter, ends the book with: "Though the change will never lead to the perfect society of our dreams, we may hope that it will permit human beings at least that minimum of moral dignity which alone can justify the strange accident of man’s existence", which could be considered a mythical belief by his standards.
October 19, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. I had been reading some of Vilfredo Pareto's social theory, and found it to be both intriguing but also pretty rough going. Someone recommended that I look at Burnham's book, and boy were they right!
Burnham’s discussion of Pareto is superb, and while it is brief, it covers a lot of the most important elements in his social theory: the distinction between logical and non-logical action, residues and derivations, and the circulation of the elites. I found it to be very helpful in getting a better sense of the “big picture” of what Pareto was up to. And I came away from the reading much more sympathetic to Pareto’s project than I was previously. There's not much in here about Pareto's economic views, and in particular the economic liberalism that characterized his early years. But that's OK. The book covers a lot of ground, and the discussion of Pareto is just one small part.
The rest of the book is good too. I especially enjoyed his discussion of Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy, and Mosca’s theory of the ruling class.
As exegesis, the book is fantastic. Burnham's own views of what these "Machiavellian" theorists can teach us about contemporary politics is less persuasive. But again, that's OK, especially since that's a relatively small part of the book.
Recommended!
Take care, and I hope our paths cross again soon,
-Matt
Burnham’s discussion of Pareto is superb, and while it is brief, it covers a lot of the most important elements in his social theory: the distinction between logical and non-logical action, residues and derivations, and the circulation of the elites. I found it to be very helpful in getting a better sense of the “big picture” of what Pareto was up to. And I came away from the reading much more sympathetic to Pareto’s project than I was previously. There's not much in here about Pareto's economic views, and in particular the economic liberalism that characterized his early years. But that's OK. The book covers a lot of ground, and the discussion of Pareto is just one small part.
The rest of the book is good too. I especially enjoyed his discussion of Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy, and Mosca’s theory of the ruling class.
As exegesis, the book is fantastic. Burnham's own views of what these "Machiavellian" theorists can teach us about contemporary politics is less persuasive. But again, that's OK, especially since that's a relatively small part of the book.
Recommended!
Take care, and I hope our paths cross again soon,
-Matt
January 11, 2023
James Burnham's The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (1943, 305 p.) came into my possession in 2001 upon purchase from Great Expectations Bookstore in Evanston, Illinois. It languished--or should I say waited for me--on my shelves until last summer, when it made the cut to India. It proved its merit, and I can only regret the wait.
Burnham, better known for his The Managerial Revolution and then later as a writer at William F. Buckley's National Review, writes at a midway point in his odyssey from Trotskyite to Buckleyite. In this work, Burnham, starts by dismissing the claims of Dante's De Monarchia as anything other than at attempt to cover a naked political agenda. After dismissing Dante, he moves into a discussion of Dante’s fellow Florentine, political realist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Burnham argues that only by knowing politics as it's actually practiced, and not how we might wish it practiced, can we obtain and hold a measure of freedom.
After discussing Machiavelli, Burnham moves forward a several centuries to discuss lesser known political thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, names familiar but not often read: Mosca (theory of the ruling class), Sorel (myth and violence), Michaels (iron law of oligarchy), and Pareto (famous for several things, but here about elites and beliefs). Each of these thinkers, early practitioners of political science as a discipline, looks at the stark realities of politics. For instance, the dominance of elites, the role of political parties (and elites within those parties), and beliefs based on something other than empirical science. In other words, how politics, even in nascent democracies, works.
Burnham's argues that only by understanding how politics actually works can we preserve a measure of freedom, and his point convinces. Naive understandings of our political system only lead to frustration and failure. These individuals and their successors, the men and women who have studied politics since this was written (and even earlier, as Pareto is the most recent thinker considered) give us greater insight into our ways of practicing politics. Of course, ideas and even ideals are important, and perhaps Burnham undervalues these, but they do not overcome many hard realities. Machiavelli, ever the fascinating character, sets the tone not as a purveyor of evil, as the naive suppose him to be, but the consummate realist. Burnham and his thinkers add to this tradition, and by doing so can help us become wiser about the political world in which we live.
Burnham, better known for his The Managerial Revolution and then later as a writer at William F. Buckley's National Review, writes at a midway point in his odyssey from Trotskyite to Buckleyite. In this work, Burnham, starts by dismissing the claims of Dante's De Monarchia as anything other than at attempt to cover a naked political agenda. After dismissing Dante, he moves into a discussion of Dante’s fellow Florentine, political realist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Burnham argues that only by knowing politics as it's actually practiced, and not how we might wish it practiced, can we obtain and hold a measure of freedom.
After discussing Machiavelli, Burnham moves forward a several centuries to discuss lesser known political thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, names familiar but not often read: Mosca (theory of the ruling class), Sorel (myth and violence), Michaels (iron law of oligarchy), and Pareto (famous for several things, but here about elites and beliefs). Each of these thinkers, early practitioners of political science as a discipline, looks at the stark realities of politics. For instance, the dominance of elites, the role of political parties (and elites within those parties), and beliefs based on something other than empirical science. In other words, how politics, even in nascent democracies, works.
Burnham's argues that only by understanding how politics actually works can we preserve a measure of freedom, and his point convinces. Naive understandings of our political system only lead to frustration and failure. These individuals and their successors, the men and women who have studied politics since this was written (and even earlier, as Pareto is the most recent thinker considered) give us greater insight into our ways of practicing politics. Of course, ideas and even ideals are important, and perhaps Burnham undervalues these, but they do not overcome many hard realities. Machiavelli, ever the fascinating character, sets the tone not as a purveyor of evil, as the naive suppose him to be, but the consummate realist. Burnham and his thinkers add to this tradition, and by doing so can help us become wiser about the political world in which we live.
May 8, 2021
The Machiavellians is a great introduction to the Italian school of political science. It's ruthlessly logical, unapologetically unsentimental, and I suppose for many people who are quite attached to myths about modern democratic government also quite paradigm shifting.
Burnham does a great job explaining the work of other political scientists, his own input regarding the managerial revolution however isn't that insightful given that his predictions have been (mostly) proven wrong by history in that regard.
His prediction about private capitalism disappearing falls even more flatly on it's face.
I do feel that Burnham is being slightly too cynical about democracy, though not by much. The ability of people in "democratic" societies to fire their leaders in favour of others does in my view grant some legitimate reason for describing many countries as lowercase d democratic****
Overall this is a great piece of political science, and I'm determined to dive deeper into the Italian school.
Pareto's theory of the circulation of the elites in particular very much interests me.
Burnham does a great job explaining the work of other political scientists, his own input regarding the managerial revolution however isn't that insightful given that his predictions have been (mostly) proven wrong by history in that regard.
His prediction about private capitalism disappearing falls even more flatly on it's face.
I do feel that Burnham is being slightly too cynical about democracy, though not by much. The ability of people in "democratic" societies to fire their leaders in favour of others does in my view grant some legitimate reason for describing many countries as lowercase d democratic****
Overall this is a great piece of political science, and I'm determined to dive deeper into the Italian school.
Pareto's theory of the circulation of the elites in particular very much interests me.
September 25, 2017
It is a long tough book but worth it.
June 29, 2018
Excellent book, especially interesting are the sections on Pareto and Sorel.
March 19, 2022
A very good description of the PoliSci Italian school of thought and its radical pragmatism. I think Machiavelli and those who follow his thinking often get an undeserved reputation of unethical behavior and lust for power at all costs. He and his followers don't start at a desired form of utopian government, pondering how to create institutions that may bring that fantasy into reality. Instead, they just look at political processes as they occur, void of value judgements. They draw generalizations based on observed behaviors and judge them based on their effectiveness and endurnace. I can appreciate that.
I really liked the part of the book where he asserts that only power can check power. A very true statement and the basis of the American concept of checks and balances.
I really liked the part of the book where he asserts that only power can check power. A very true statement and the basis of the American concept of checks and balances.
August 1, 2023
July 2023:
Ok Spock…
But really though I do appreciate the anti-utopian rhetoric using scientific means, especially reading this back to back against Skinner’s unbelievable Beyond Freedom and Dignity (which sciences the hell out of all existence). There are a few bits of insightfulness written at a time way back when the war was still happening… but you know, mostly dry and pretentious.
Ok Spock…
But really though I do appreciate the anti-utopian rhetoric using scientific means, especially reading this back to back against Skinner’s unbelievable Beyond Freedom and Dignity (which sciences the hell out of all existence). There are a few bits of insightfulness written at a time way back when the war was still happening… but you know, mostly dry and pretentious.
April 27, 2022
Very well written, interesting look at political "science" as a true science identifying the facts of societies and the observable history of political struggle throughout human civilization. These philosophers simply observe the reality of society and human behavior and analyze politics through that lens. "It is the habit of utopians, not scientists, to interpret politics as wish and to confuse their desires with what is going to happen. "
March 24, 2022
Burnham's narrative feels extremely disorganized for the first ~80%, which reads like him saying "here are some guys I like". By the end though, he gives a nice refutation of utopia via a reasonable synthesis of his influences in his own style.
March 5, 2024
I read Burnham’s Suicide of the West in 2022, liking it quite a bit but not believing it was one of the great books on the philosophy of conservatism. James Burnham was a peculiar character to me, and nothing more. My opinion drastically changed when I read this spectacular book, a book that made me love Machiavelli. (I loved Machiavelli, and in turn, Marlowe so much more. I loved the quoted soliloquy so much, that I read his play, The Jew of Malta, the following week.)
The book offers insight from seven authors: Dante, Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Michels, and Pareto. His introductory chapters on Dante show how NOT to read the books of political thinkers; there are formal reasons for writing the texts, such as what Dante shows in his De Monarchia, and then there are real reasons that may be understood once we get to know Dante’s life and history on a more intimate level. In writing about the ideal society, Dante’s intentions may not have been the rectification of the current, corrupt systems of power, but to seize power for his party. This is what the learned and attentive reader would immediately see. The same could be said about Marx and Rousseau, who obviously did not care about creating a better society, but their enrichment and interests.
Before reading this book, I had not heard of Mosca, Sorel, or Michels, and never had I thought that Vilfredo Pareto was such an interesting character. I came to appreciate the French/Italian economist, so much more after reading about his rational study of systems of power, and how the elites garner ever more power and preserve it.
Even Machiavelli has grown in importance to me: His innovation of political science was in formalizing it using empiricism. He has sought to study history to learn what worked in history, what did not, and most importantly, why. I read Machiavelli a long time ago while taking Astronomy at Kuwait University, and I remember the hours I spent right out of the lecture hall reading it and waiting for the lecture’s time. I understood it only superficially and thought of it as a manual. Had I read this book first, I would have seen how brilliant a thinker he was, since he aimed to create a science out of theories used throughout history to gain favors. Irrespective of Machiavelli’s intention with the publication of this volume – i.e., whether he wished to gain power, status, and office through its publication – he has successfully changed the course of the science of politics by empirically studying the problems those in power face and must deal with.
Mosca, Sorel, and Michels were less impressed in my memory, and I decided to reread the book to remember their ideas. They introduced the concepts of elites, and their formal study until Pareto came and wrote the most important texts on the topic. Pareto was a very important figure in Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought, and rightly so; and now, I understand how great of a thinker he is in many other fields of social thought.
The Machiavellians is one of the most important books on conservatism because it shows the reader how complicated political theory is, and it reminds us not to take political thinkers at face value, but to try to inspect their writings and read them in context, seeing what is hidden a layer under the surface.
The book offers insight from seven authors: Dante, Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Michels, and Pareto. His introductory chapters on Dante show how NOT to read the books of political thinkers; there are formal reasons for writing the texts, such as what Dante shows in his De Monarchia, and then there are real reasons that may be understood once we get to know Dante’s life and history on a more intimate level. In writing about the ideal society, Dante’s intentions may not have been the rectification of the current, corrupt systems of power, but to seize power for his party. This is what the learned and attentive reader would immediately see. The same could be said about Marx and Rousseau, who obviously did not care about creating a better society, but their enrichment and interests.
Before reading this book, I had not heard of Mosca, Sorel, or Michels, and never had I thought that Vilfredo Pareto was such an interesting character. I came to appreciate the French/Italian economist, so much more after reading about his rational study of systems of power, and how the elites garner ever more power and preserve it.
Even Machiavelli has grown in importance to me: His innovation of political science was in formalizing it using empiricism. He has sought to study history to learn what worked in history, what did not, and most importantly, why. I read Machiavelli a long time ago while taking Astronomy at Kuwait University, and I remember the hours I spent right out of the lecture hall reading it and waiting for the lecture’s time. I understood it only superficially and thought of it as a manual. Had I read this book first, I would have seen how brilliant a thinker he was, since he aimed to create a science out of theories used throughout history to gain favors. Irrespective of Machiavelli’s intention with the publication of this volume – i.e., whether he wished to gain power, status, and office through its publication – he has successfully changed the course of the science of politics by empirically studying the problems those in power face and must deal with.
Mosca, Sorel, and Michels were less impressed in my memory, and I decided to reread the book to remember their ideas. They introduced the concepts of elites, and their formal study until Pareto came and wrote the most important texts on the topic. Pareto was a very important figure in Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought, and rightly so; and now, I understand how great of a thinker he is in many other fields of social thought.
The Machiavellians is one of the most important books on conservatism because it shows the reader how complicated political theory is, and it reminds us not to take political thinkers at face value, but to try to inspect their writings and read them in context, seeing what is hidden a layer under the surface.
November 2, 2021
James Burnham's The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (1943, 270 p.) was recommended by another author to get a firm understanding of politics in the world in which we live. I searched everywhere for a copy and was very happy to finally get my hands on it.
Burnham, better known for his The Managerial Revolution and then later as a writer at William F. Buckley's National Review, writes at a midway point in his odyssey from Trotskyite to Buckleyite. In this work, Burnham, starts by dismissing the claims of Dante's De Monarchia as anything other than at attempt to cover a naked political agenda. After dismissing Dante, he moves into a discussion of Dante’s fellow Florentine, political realist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Burnham argues that only by knowing politics as it's actually practiced, and not how we might wish it practiced, can we obtain and hold a measure of freedom.
After discussing Machiavelli, Burnham moves forward a several centuries to discuss lesser known political thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, names familiar but not often read: Mosca (theory of the ruling class), Sorel (myth and violence), Michaels (iron law of oligarchy), and Pareto (famous for several things, but here about elites and beliefs). Each of these thinkers, early practitioners of political science as a discipline, looks at the stark realities of politics. For instance, the dominance of elites, the role of political parties (and elites within those parties), and beliefs based on something other than empirical science. In other words, how politics, even in nascent democracies, works.
Burnham's argues that only by understanding how politics actually works can we preserve a measure of freedom, and his point convinces. Naive understandings of our political system only lead to frustration and failure. These individuals and their successors, the men and women who have studied politics since this was written (and even earlier, as Pareto is the most recent thinker considered) give us greater insight into our ways of practicing politics. Of course, ideas and even ideals are important, and perhaps Burnham undervalues these, but they do not overcome many hard realities. Machiavelli, ever the fascinating character, sets the tone not as a purveyor of evil, as the naive suppose him to be, but the consummate realist. Burnham and his thinkers add to this tradition, and by doing so can help us become wiser about the political world in which we live.
Burnham, better known for his The Managerial Revolution and then later as a writer at William F. Buckley's National Review, writes at a midway point in his odyssey from Trotskyite to Buckleyite. In this work, Burnham, starts by dismissing the claims of Dante's De Monarchia as anything other than at attempt to cover a naked political agenda. After dismissing Dante, he moves into a discussion of Dante’s fellow Florentine, political realist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Burnham argues that only by knowing politics as it's actually practiced, and not how we might wish it practiced, can we obtain and hold a measure of freedom.
After discussing Machiavelli, Burnham moves forward a several centuries to discuss lesser known political thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, names familiar but not often read: Mosca (theory of the ruling class), Sorel (myth and violence), Michaels (iron law of oligarchy), and Pareto (famous for several things, but here about elites and beliefs). Each of these thinkers, early practitioners of political science as a discipline, looks at the stark realities of politics. For instance, the dominance of elites, the role of political parties (and elites within those parties), and beliefs based on something other than empirical science. In other words, how politics, even in nascent democracies, works.
Burnham's argues that only by understanding how politics actually works can we preserve a measure of freedom, and his point convinces. Naive understandings of our political system only lead to frustration and failure. These individuals and their successors, the men and women who have studied politics since this was written (and even earlier, as Pareto is the most recent thinker considered) give us greater insight into our ways of practicing politics. Of course, ideas and even ideals are important, and perhaps Burnham undervalues these, but they do not overcome many hard realities. Machiavelli, ever the fascinating character, sets the tone not as a purveyor of evil, as the naive suppose him to be, but the consummate realist. Burnham and his thinkers add to this tradition, and by doing so can help us become wiser about the political world in which we live.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2019
I got introduced to this book via a friend on Facebook, I knew this man has a very well-read individual with Scholars mind so I've always thought of him highly and when he told me his desire to read this book and his reasons for doing so it instantly became something I would look out for in the future. Supposedly this is mencius moldbug favorite book and a lot of Neo reactionaries to say the least are definitely giving this book some praise and well deserved if I may add.
The book serves as a introduction to Italian philosophy, political science and sociology starting with Machiavelli ending with Pareto. The book is very efficient and excellent in the way that it feeds The Reader information it's not one of those books where you read 30 pages to learn one thing and the next hundred are expanding on that acquired knowledge. I got this book via audible in the form of a 9 Hour audiobook so I can't break down the page to information ratio but it's very good and very informative like all introductions should be, that being said I would not classify this book has holding your hand or assuming conclusions and definitely not a work if its own.
The book has a amazing analysis and view of group psychology elite theory and the process that groups and Powers. One of the best books I've read this year.
The book serves as a introduction to Italian philosophy, political science and sociology starting with Machiavelli ending with Pareto. The book is very efficient and excellent in the way that it feeds The Reader information it's not one of those books where you read 30 pages to learn one thing and the next hundred are expanding on that acquired knowledge. I got this book via audible in the form of a 9 Hour audiobook so I can't break down the page to information ratio but it's very good and very informative like all introductions should be, that being said I would not classify this book has holding your hand or assuming conclusions and definitely not a work if its own.
The book has a amazing analysis and view of group psychology elite theory and the process that groups and Powers. One of the best books I've read this year.
July 30, 2022
This is definitely one of the best and most important books I have ever read and arguably the most important book of political science of the 20th century.
This book is written for truth-seekers and cold analysts. Be ready to reconsider all you think you know about ideologies and political philosophies. Be ready to start looking beyond the sugar-coated words of intellectuals and to arrive at the real meaning behind those words and the motivations of their writers.
Following the Machiavellians and the Italian school of political science, James Burnham abandons all ideologies for the sake of scientific truth. He presented all of what he had learned from these great thinkers (Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Michels and Pareto) in a very intelligible prose with scientific evidence and cold analysis.
Read this book. Seek the truth, as Jefferson said, wherever it may lead.
This book is written for truth-seekers and cold analysts. Be ready to reconsider all you think you know about ideologies and political philosophies. Be ready to start looking beyond the sugar-coated words of intellectuals and to arrive at the real meaning behind those words and the motivations of their writers.
Following the Machiavellians and the Italian school of political science, James Burnham abandons all ideologies for the sake of scientific truth. He presented all of what he had learned from these great thinkers (Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Michels and Pareto) in a very intelligible prose with scientific evidence and cold analysis.
Read this book. Seek the truth, as Jefferson said, wherever it may lead.
March 28, 2022
Realist acknowledgement that no matter what, there will be a ruling elite and a majority of ruled. This is true across autocracy, social democratic parties, syndicalism and anarchy. Ultimately, in any sufficiently complex society, it makes sense to delegate decision making authority, after which we end up in the familiar dynamic of rulers and ruled. He then argues a number of thinkers including Machiavelli appreciate this basic fact and proceed to analyse political actors objectively, which involves focusing on how they act and not the ideals they pretend to.
The book is dense but sections of spectacular clarity break through. I still found is heavy listening.
The book is dense but sections of spectacular clarity break through. I still found is heavy listening.
November 21, 2022
A study of the political realist/elite theory of Machiavelli and his intellectual heirs Mosca, Sorel, Pareto and Michels which argues elites are inevitable but that freedom means being able to counter and have circulation of elites. It’s an intellectual alternative to the Marxism Burnham left behind.
October 30, 2020
This book contains a great perspective on how real, pragmatic, politics works, and exposes many of the traps that idealistic politics create. It starts with an antithesis exemplified by Dante Alighieri and continues with examples of politicians that exemplify the Machiavellian thinking.
November 29, 2020
Add it to your list, politics junkies
Absolute must-read for understanding politics. Burnham and his Machiavellian subjects cut through the facade presented as how government works to explain the science behind how it actually does.
Absolute must-read for understanding politics. Burnham and his Machiavellian subjects cut through the facade presented as how government works to explain the science behind how it actually does.
December 14, 2020
The greatest problem with this book is its accuracy. This is a problem not because the accuracy is lacking, but because many of the conclusions it draws about our society are dismal.
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